At the Oakland Airport, California, U.S.A. a short time ago a silent
fplane slanted across the sky, showing a thin trail of white vapour. It was so
silent in operation that spectators heard the pilot shout a greeting to those on
the ground. He banked into a turn, and was watched sliding to a landing,
and, with the propeller spinning backwards, roll to a stop in less than a
hundred feet. This was Mr. William Besler giving his first demonstration
flight, and it was, we think, for the first time in history that a man had flown
in a steam-driven aeroplane.

This steam driven machine is the achievement of two brothers, Messrs.
George and William Besler, and is the result of experimental pioneer work
carried out by them during the past three years. Through their endeavours -
undertaken with a good deal of secrecy - the steam-driven aeroplane, the
possibilities of which have long been discussed, has become an accomplished
fact. Our American correspondent, to whom we are indebted for the following
particulars, tells us that passengers on the steam fplane in full flight are able to
carry on a conversation as easily as when riding in an open motor car. The pilot,
when flying at 200 ft. altitude, called to the spectators below, and heard their
answering calls.

During the demonstration Mr. Besler made three flights, taking off,
circling about, and landing, to show the ease of control. What was generally
remarked upon was the almost complete silence. The constant, wearing
vibration of the internal combustion engine was gone; the elastic pull and push
of the steam engine had supplanted it. Each time as the machine swooped
down and the landing wheels touched ground, the pilot pulled back a small
lever at the side of the cockpit and the steam engine at the nose of the fplane
instantly reversed, whirling the propeller backwards, creating a powerful
braking effect which reduced the landing runs to a very short distance.
This is one of the fundamental characteristics of a reversing steam engine
and that which can never be imitated by an explosion motor. There is,
moreover, the fact that the reversed propeller applies its braking effect above
the centre of gravity of the machine, and thus prevents it nosing over in a quick
stop. Brakes applied to the landing wheels of a steam-driven fplane are not
necessary. On an I.C. fplane landing wheel brakes suddenly applied have
been a cause of somersaulting, and a ground crash. It is said that the Besler
fplane, coming in at 50 m.p.h., can sit down, and come to a stop, in a field
scarcely 100 feet square.

Turning now to the power-plant, this, of course, is of Doble Steam
Motors and Beslerfs design and manufacture; and its main details are already
familiar to many of our readers. The production of steam automatically, at a
practically constant pressure and degree of superheat, from the forced-feed or
flash steam generator, and the patented electric controls, by which it is
accomplished; are fully described in the Doble-Besler Patent Specification,
which we reproduce on another page.

The steam generator is fed with water by a steam donkey pump, the
exhaust from which is first taken through a Feed-water heater, before finally
passing into the condenser. The burner is similar to that described in our May
1931 issue of gS.C.D.h The whole of the power plant is installed at the nose of
the aeroplane, with the engine forward of the steam generator. The engine is a
2-cylindered compound, double-acting of a V-design, with the cylinders H.P. 3
inches and L.P. 5 inches bore, by 3 inches stroke. It develops 150 B.H.P. at
1,200 lbs. (temperature 800 degrees Fahr.) steam pressure, and abut 1,650
revolutions per minute. The engine was not built particularly for lightness; it
weighs 180 lbs., and by using special aircraft materials, its weight could be
lessened.

The steam generator tubing is coiled into flat spirals, and totals abut 500
feet in length. The lower coils, into which the feed-water is introduced, are of
tube about 3/8 of an inch bore, and the upper coils from which the superheated
steam is drawn off, are about 5/8 of an inch bore. The water supply to the coils
is thermostatically controlled to keep the steam temperature constant
irrespective of the steam pressure.

Under the fuselage nose is the condenser, which is simply a section of an
ordinary petrol car radiator, and this is said to be sufficient to recover more
than ninety per cent. of the water from the exhaust steam.

At the start of a flight, the pilot climbs into the cockpit and flips over a
small switch. The electric blower immediately goes into action, driving air
mixed with oil spray into the combustion chamber. Here, an electric spark
ignites the mixture and sends a sheet of flame roaring downwards among the
spiral boiler coils.. A minute or so later, steam pressure is high enough for take-off.
All the pilot has to do from then on, (as regards the power unit) is to
operate the throttle and the reverse lever.

The tests have shown that ten gallons of water is sufficient for a flight of
400 miles. By increasing the size and efficiency of the condenser, the Besler
Brothers believe they can make this amount of water last indefinitely.
The prospect of steam fplanes on the skyways opens up fascinating
possibilities. Burning, as they do, ordinary furnace oil of so high a flash point
that it merely smoulders if struck by the flame of a blowtorch, steam power
plants have little to fear from the menace of fire. Moreover, fuel oil is cheap,
sufficient for a hundred-mile trip can be bought for 1s. 8d.

At any height above a thousand feet a steam-driven fplane is quite
inaudible from below, this would give it particular value for military work.
Noiseless war fplanes have long been sought; but attempting to muffle the noise
of an I.C. aerial engine reduces its power to such an extent that the plan is
impracticable. A steam power plant, silent by nature, would permit of long-distance
raids above the clouds by fplanes giving off no tell-tale drone of motors
to warn the enemy, or to aid in directing anti-aircraft fire.

It is interesting to speculate upon the possibilities of steam on the airways
of the stratosphere. In the thin atmosphere of this region, ten miles, or more,
above the surface of the earth, experts predict, the high speed transport ships of
the future will fly. The chief stumbling block at present is the internal
combustion motor. It steadily loses power as it ascends, and it has been said
that a motor, which delivers 150 H.P. at seal level, will only give about half that
power when it has climbed to 20,000 feet altitude. At 30,000 feet the sea level
horse power of 150, will probably have dwindled to about 45 horse power. And
you are then only half way to the stratosphere!

Superchargers, driving a blast of air into the carburetter to make up for the
reduced pressure in rarefied atmospheres, help these internal combustion
motors, but they never completely prevent loss of power at high altitudes. On
the other hand, a steam engine loses no power at all with altitude, and it gains
in efficiency the higher it climbs, partly because the exhaust back-pressure is
less in thin air than at sea level. Thus it seems that the perfecting of steam
power aerial units will be an important step towards conquering the
stratosphere.

There are several other engineering firms actively engaged in developing
stem aviation, and we give some brief details herewith. These may perhaps, be
of interest to our readers. In the first place, we are indebted to the gDaily
Telegraphh of April 16, 1934, for the following extract:

Details are now available of the steam-driven aeroplane which has
been under secret construction on the outskirts of Berlin for many
months. The inventor is Herr Huettner, chief engineer of the
Klingenberg electricity works.

The machine is not yet finished, but the plans, according to the
gBerliner Tageblatth have been submitted to experts and found to be
theoretically satisfactory. They have been elaborated down to the
smallest detail, and give rise to the following expectations:

If practice agrees with theory, a non-stop flight will be possible to Japan,
Capetown, San Francisco, Rio-de-janeiro, or Singapore, of more than one-third
of the circumference of the earth.

REVOLVING BOILERS.

The secret of these claims is said to lie in the fact that for the first
time Herr Huettner has succeeded in solving the problem of a satisfactory
ratio of weight to power.

Herr Huettnerfs solution consists of a revolving boiler combined with
a steam turbine. If successful it will, of course, also be applied to motor-cars.
The fuel used is oil gas, and in view of the great power developed,
Herr Huettner has adopted twin propellers, revolving in opposite
directions.

In March last the Daily Telegraph Prague Correspondent reported
that an article in the Czechoslovak newspaper gPrager Tagblatt,h giving
details of Herr Huettnerfs invention, has led to the arrest of the Berlin
correspondent of that paper.

The following steam-aviation items have also been received from various
sources:

In Akron, Ohio, last autumn, a local inventor, Harold C. Johnson,
announced the completion of a steam engine with two opposed cylinders,
weighing, complete with boiler, only 146 pounds. Some months earlier, it
became known that the Great Lakes Aircraft Company, at Cleveland, Ohio,
was working upon an experimental steam-driven biplane. Recent dispatches
from France reported that a Paris mechanic had perfected a light steam power
plant for aeroplanes. Another news item, coming from Sweden, told of steam-turbine
engineers who are working on a new-type turbine for aircraft use; while
a third from Italy carried the information that G. A. Raffaelli, an
aeronautical engineer, had announced a steam engine for stratosphere
machines. But we think, it was the two California inventors - the Besler
Brothers - who first achieved steam-driven flight.

-oOo-

Steam Car Developments
and Steam Aviation

VOL. III. JULY, 1934 NO. 29.

The Steam-Driven Aeroplane.

Steam has at last triumphed in the air; the successful flights that have taken
place at Oakland in California have prove beyond the shadow of doubt that
steam is destined to play a most important part in the history of aeronautics.
It is little to be wondered at that experts are watching the progress of this
invention of the Besler Brothers with keen interest, when one realizes what it
means to Aviation to possess a silent eplane capable of being started up by
simply closing a switch in front of the pilot, which without any other effort or
thought on his part, starts the burner, appraises the required working pressure of
steam in the generator, in the space of thirty seconds or so, sufficient to send
the airscrew whirling at 1,625 revolutions per minute.

This is what has been accomplished, and it can be done in the coldest of
weather with equal certainty every time. As most people know this cannot be
done in frosty weather on an ordinary motor car, with any degree of certainty,
and without a severe tax upon the starting battery.

Again the steam propelled eplane uses a fuel of high flash point, non-explosive,
and so safe in use that half the terrors of flying disappear straight
away. Petrol, as a fuel, is just about the most dangerous thing to be carried on
any machine, particularly in the air, where, if a conflagration takes place, there
is little hope for either the pilot or passengers, except by parachute; and no
hope for the machine itself, to say nothing of a crash which so often ends in the
occupants being roasted alive.

But safety and silence in the air are not all that is to be gained by using
steam as a motive power. As we mentioned in gS.C.D. & S.A.h last month, it is
impossible to stall a steam engine in flight, it has the capacity of holding on. It
is also unaffected by atmospheric conditions, and is capable of developing its full
power at low rates of revolution so that the working parts of the engine are
much less likely to give out under actual working conditions. This means for a
correspondingly longer life, and a lower cost of maintenance.

The Besler Brothers demonstrated to the full the advantages of the steam
enginefs ability to reverse instantly its air-screw n flight, and the extra safety
and ease of handling which that important aspect gives. It is all too well known
how ruinously extravagant the modern petrol engine is, both in fuel and
lubricating oil. Here the steam engine scores as its lubrication costs are negligible, and it can see the cheapest of fuel. Apart from this, one of the other
troubles of the I.C. Engine in flight is the elaborate precautions which have to
be to keep lubricating oil at a reasonable temperature, and this been a
considerable source of worry to designers. The steam engine does not suffer in
this respect, the lubricating oil is not contaminated in use, and as the crankcase
completely isolated from the working cylinders, the oil in it does not rise in
temperature, even on the longest runs.

With the I.C.E. driven aeroplane, flying at height, rarefied atmospheres are
encountered, superchargers have been brought into requisition, and, even
where this complication has been added, it never completely prevents the loss
of power which occurs at high altitudes.

In our last issue we described how the silence of the steam driven fplane was
appreciated by all who witnessed the flight. How the calls from the pilot were
heard by the crowds below, and their replies received in turn by the pilot. What
these silent steam-driven fplanes eventually mean for military purposes, can be
readily understood.

The conditions for the efficient working of a modern steam plant in the air
are ideal, under almost all circumstances The condensing of, the exhaust steam
from the engine is rendered easy, and as nearly perfect as it is possible to get in
any steam plant, far more so than in a steam driven motor car, where the air
current available for condensation is so much less powerful.

In the current, issue of the gEngineer" one reads an advertisement by a firm
of boilermakers which stresses the fact that no boiler should be dependent on
any one variety of fuel - it should be capable of using anything combustible, in
the nature of coal, or oil, or wood. We quite agree with that statement,
particularly where the Royal Navy is concerned, all our fighting ships are fitted
out for oil-firing only, and as this country depends largely upon foreign oil
supplies, which, in the event of war are liable to be interrupted, the practice
seems distinctly dangerous. Now let us look ahead a little; we already have
aeroplanes flying over vast stretches of forest land, and open plains where
petrol is quite unavailable. We can see the time coming when a light steam
generator will be designed in which the oil burner can be quickly removed,
when necessary. Then in an emergency where a fplane has had to come down
through fuel shortage, the journey could be continued with the aid of wood fuel
firing.

Lady Bailey, in her long flight some years ago, mentioned flying for several
days over the tree tops of huge forests. Had her petrol given out over this
region, it would have spelt death to the occupant of the machine, but had it
been necessary for her to land in a partially cleared area, and presuming she did
so without a crash, petrol supplies would most certainly not have been
obtainable. The pilot of a steam fplane with an interchangeable firebox would,
in such an emergency, be able to collect sufficient wood fuel to enable him to
take off again, and continue on his way. These are just a few ways of looking at
our future, but such days will most certainly come, and may come soon.